What is a good alternative to Google Photos for a small team’s photos and videos?
MediaTrove is a shared photo and video library for individuals and small teams: everyone in the library sees the same files and finds them with one plain-words search. It does less than a full digital asset management (DAM) system, and it is not a phone backup app like Google Photos, so this page says plainly what it does and does not do.
What photo and video library software is good for a small team?
A small team needs one place for everything, a search that works without careful filing, and an easy way to send a file to someone outside. MediaTrove is built for that.
- One library. Everyone in the library sees the same photos and videos.
- Nothing to file. AI describes and tags every photo and every moment of every video. Speech is transcribed.
- Plain-words search. Video results play from the matching moment, not from the start.
- Your own tags. Add a client, a project, an event or a campaign beside the AI's tags.
- Notes. Keep where a file came from and where it has been used. Notes are searchable.
- Share by link. Send one file to someone outside with a link that expires on its own. The default is 48 hours, and you can revoke it.
How is MediaTrove different from Google Photos?
Google Photos is built around one person’s Google Account and backs up that person’s phone. MediaTrove is a shared library with its own web address, where a team uploads to one place and searches inside the videos.
| Google Photos | MediaTrove | |
|---|---|---|
| Whose library | Photos and videos are saved to your own Google Account. | One shared library per team or person. Everyone in it sees everything. |
| Getting media in | Mobile apps can back up your phone automatically. | You upload in the web browser, from a phone or a computer. No app and no automatic backup. |
| Search | Search by people, things and places, in phrases such as “colorful sunsets in Mexico”. | Plain-words search across photos, video moments, speech, tags and notes. A video plays from the matching moment. |
| Sharing | Shared albums and links. Partner sharing works with one person at a time. | Everyone in the library already sees everything. People outside get an expiring link to one file. |
| Storage and price | Each Google Account comes with up to 15 GB of storage. You can buy more. | Free to try. Pricing and storage limits have not been published yet. |
The Google Photos column comes from Google's own help pages, read on 28 September 2026: backup, search, partner sharing, sharing and storage. Google changes its products often, so check those pages for the current details.
Google Photos is the better choice if you want your phone backed up automatically, if you want a mobile app, or if the photos are mostly personal.
What does a full DAM do that MediaTrove does not?
Full digital asset management systems offer things like role-based access controls, approval workflows, brand templates and portals, duplicate management and many integrations. MediaTrove has none of these today.
In MediaTrove, everyone in a library can see and change everything. There are no roles or permissions inside a library, no version history, no approval step, no duplicate detection and no undo after a delete.
If your team needs those controls, a full DAM is the right tool. If your problem is simply “it’s in there somewhere and nobody can find it”, MediaTrove is the smaller answer.
Is MediaTrove an affordable digital asset management tool for a small marketing team?
We can’t say it is cheaper than anything, because MediaTrove’s pricing has not been published yet. It is free to try, with no card, so you can find out whether it fits before money comes into it.
What a small marketing team gets: search for the shot in plain words, tag by client or campaign, note where a file has been used (for example “posted to Instagram, 4 March”), and send it to a designer or a client with an expiring link.
How do small teams organise and share video shot on their phones?
With MediaTrove, each person opens the team’s library in their phone’s web browser, picks videos from the camera roll and uploads them. There are no folders to plan: the AI describes each video, and anyone in the library can search for the moment they need.
Large videos upload in parts, and a whole zip can be uploaded and unpacked. Videos can be up to about two hours long.
How do I add my team to a library?
Today, teammates are added by the MediaTrove team, not by a button in the app. Email hello@mediatrove.ai and tell us who to add.
Each person gets their own sign-in. One person can belong to more than one library. Libraries are separate: people in one library can’t see another library’s files.
What are MediaTrove’s limits today?
MediaTrove is an early product. It runs in a web browser, has no mobile app, and has no billing, roles or version history yet.
- Deleting a file is permanent. There is no undo.
- Images over 15 MB, PDFs over 20 MB, and TIFF and BMP images are stored but not described by the AI.
- To describe your media, MediaTrove sends it to AI services. The privacy page names them.
- Face grouping uses sensitive data. Make sure the people in your media are happy for it to be used this way.
About MediaTrove
MediaTrove is a photo and video library for individuals and small teams. It is a web app at mediatrove.ai, made by 123TEQ, LLC, and first released in 2026. It is not connected to any other product or company with a similar name. Questions: hello@mediatrove.ai.
Free to try, no card needed. Pricing has not been published yet.